by gbaygon on 7/15/19, 3:49 PM with 188 comments
by cgriswald on 7/15/19, 4:14 PM
Which is fine for the entry-level model. Is it true for the more expensive model? The article doesn't say.
> With that as the background, Apple was bound to make a sacrifice or two to reached the aggressive price point and it did so with the SSD. Most people will take that over it removing something like Touch ID or another feature they'd use on a daily basis. It's also worth pointing out that given it is an entry-level point product, most users who pick up the new notebook likely won't notice the difference at all.
I'm not sure that most people would, given the choice, have gone that route. There are plenty of Apple features (including Touch ID) that Apple thinks people want, but I'm not convinced that most people definitely want them. The last sentence is the only one that counts: most people won't notice.
by mrpippy on 7/15/19, 5:32 PM
The T2 chip is an Apple ARM SoC running Darwin/XNU (basically a cut-down iOS). It connects to the Intel system using a variety of buses.
From a storage perspective, the T2 is the storage controller. It sits between raw NAND flash and the Intel system (connecting to the Intel with PCIe/NVMe). The T2 transparently encrypts all data stored on the NAND, using the factory-burned-in key.
Given this architecture, how would read speeds drop by 35% from one model to the next? I'm not sure--my first guess was that fewer NAND chips were being used, but teardowns show that both 2018 and 2019 models were using two chips. So same controller, same number of chips. Maybe the NAND is just slower? Or the T2 has less RAM, so it can cache less?
by filleokus on 7/15/19, 4:27 PM
It's probably however the first time, I can remember at least, where Apple downgraded a newer model in such an unequivocal way.
I mean newer CPU's have had different multicore/single core tradeoffs, the inclusion of a dedicated GPU have been removed in base models etc, and the endless discussion of ports (rip SD card slot etc) but I don't think we have ever seen something like this?
by who_what_why on 7/15/19, 4:20 PM
by rythie on 7/15/19, 4:36 PM
I'm sure for almost all users of those machines, the SSD is more than fast enough for everything they want and big upgrade from HDD based Windows laptops many will be switching from (those were typical 3-4 years ago and even now are still around).
https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pc...
by jerf on 7/15/19, 5:44 PM
Nominally, my personal system has something that can do 2GB/s, but in normal operation, as programs and OSes do their thing, the software is incapable of making requests quickly enough to come even close to saturating the bandwidth. I'm not sure if you dropped a part in there that maxed out at 512MB/s that I could even notice.
Amdahl's law codifies the observation that as you get closer and closer to 0 time taken for a particular subtask, you'll rapidly stop gaining actual performance due to all the other subtasks that didn't speed up. It seems like 1GB/s is likely to be as close to infinite in practice as 2GB/s is.
by uwuhn on 7/15/19, 4:08 PM
He told me it was because they had dropped the price point on the SSDs. I'm curious if they were actually briefed on why they're cheaper and what to respond with when asked, or if he actually didn't know why Apple reduced the price (cheaper/worse SSDs).
by _ph_ on 7/15/19, 4:12 PM
by cm2187 on 7/15/19, 4:19 PM
by josteink on 7/15/19, 5:12 PM
Honest question.
Edit: For the downvoters, it’s a real concern: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/11/06/mac-t2chip-linux/
by dexterdog on 7/15/19, 7:16 PM
by olliej on 7/15/19, 4:14 PM
by JustSomeNobody on 7/15/19, 4:20 PM
by floatingatoll on 7/15/19, 10:32 PM
Compiling requires a Pro due to the cores, so I/O won’t be your restriction due to the busy cores, and the small size of files and memory-cached directory structures.
Video encoding a 2-hour, 50GB Blu-Ray rip is restricted to the performance of the hwaccel available, which is guaranteed to be less than 1Gbps of input for any plausible output, and thus not I/O restricted either.
Any file size under 200M will be unaffected since it can be read from disk in one clock second on either old or new.
So, completely seriously, who will be using an Air and negatively impacted by this change, such that it’s newsworthy and frontpage-worthy?
Certainly not the students it’s targeted towards — unless they’re in data sciences, in which case they’ll need 2 minutes to process an entire drive full of data instead of 1 minute, having somehow overcome CPU and RAM limitations to do so.
I believe such cases are possible, but I’m having a hard time constructing plausible ones.
by nazgulnarsil on 7/15/19, 9:47 PM
by filmgirlcw on 7/15/19, 8:12 PM
Incidentally, I got my mom the 2018 Air (to replace her 2010 13” MacBook Pro) and she loves it and she LOVES Touch ID. She uses her iPad for most things but occasionally needs a full computer and it’s been great for her.
If I had any reason for a <del>third</del> <del>fourth</del> fifth laptop (I do not), I’d consider one just as something to play on.
by toomanybeersies on 7/16/19, 1:08 AM
Most people I know with MacBook Airs don't actually use any peripherals.
On the other hand, I need 2 dongles and a USB SD card reader just to do my job with my 2018 MBP. I also need an external keyboard, which I never used to need, because it's literally painful to use the keyboard all day.
by Mikeb85 on 7/15/19, 6:35 PM
Honestly, for a typical user, the typical amount of RAM and SSD speeds is more than enough.
by Razengan on 7/15/19, 7:02 PM
by ryanmercer on 7/15/19, 4:38 PM
by wwweston on 7/15/19, 5:34 PM
Wait, what's that? You can't? Oh. Well, if that matters to you, maybe you should buy a pro model that will let you customize components.
What's that? Oh. Well, let's be honest, who really cares about this stuff anyway? If you want something different from what Apple is offering, you're really just not part of their market anyway.
by catacombs on 7/15/19, 8:47 PM
by ChuckNorris89 on 7/15/19, 4:10 PM
by aurizon on 7/15/19, 11:59 PM
by reilly3000 on 7/15/19, 4:15 PM
by wedn3sday on 7/15/19, 6:19 PM